From Oscar Wilde to a Pulitzer winner, theatre gets literary this month

April is the cruellest month, TS Eliot once said. But from where we’re standing, it’s proving to be rather kind to theatre lovers. It doesn’t look anything like the poet’s Waste Land but a rich trove of productions. With a four-in-one tribute to Kuo Pao Kun this month, the annual outdoor staging of Shakespeare (it’s Othello this time), Oscar Wilde, Latin American giants, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a college cult fave, it’s one whole month of literary goodness. It’s time to get lit.

LATIN AMERICAN ALPHABET

As TheatreWorks’ associate artists, art collective Vertical Submarine wanted to follow up their 2011 theatre debut Dust — A Recollection with a 48-hour-long event revolving around interrogations. Realising they might not get enough people to stay, they thought of something less audacious but no less interesting: A four-in-one show centred around four 20th century authors.

ABCD’s title is taken from the names of four authors, and through the course of the play, we watch interpretations of Roberto Arlt’s Luba, Jorge Luis Borges’ The Form Of The Sword, Julio Cortazar’s House Taken Over and Marguerite Duras’ The Malady Of Death. All of these feature two characters (performed by Rayann Condy, Vanessa Ann Vanderstraaten, Stephane Brusa and Tim Garner) and deal with the impossibility of dialogue. (Ironically, this is the group’s first production with actual dialogue.)

While it’s technically a piece of theatre, member Joshua Yang said they approached its creation as they would a painting.

“During the rehearsal process, we just kept on doing runs of the whole script again and again, like starting with a very rough sketch, then the under-painting, then more layers. I think it drove the actors crazy,” he laughed.

As for audiences, Yang hopes that the piece is received as a kind of “book recommendation” for Latin American literature that the group is fond of.

“They’re a bit anti-literature and it can be very hard to get through the texts but we want people to get interested in the books,” he said, intimating that the act of reading isn’t confined to books.

“We try to widen the definition. Even in painting, you’re supposed to ‘read’ what the painter put in there; in theatre, you also ‘read’ the body language of the authors and listen to the lines. There’s this kind of decoding process.”

LIFE ON THE EDGE

With its most famous song about looking for friends on Facebook, Edges The Musical hardly seems to be in the same league as the rest of the literary heavyweights hitting the stage this month. But its coming of age premise about 20somethings and the fact that its writers came up with it at the age of 19; really, what’s there not to “Like” about it?

Written in 2005 by young American musical writing duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the song cycle about youths on the brink of adulthood was somewhat of a cult hit in the US college circuit. And it is the perfect show for Sightlines Productions, who wanted to follow up their first two shows with a musical, to stage.

“We did a comedy revue (Trainstopping) and a play (Boom) so we wanted a musical — but we didn’t have the budget for Wicked,” quipped director Derrick Chew.

Together with friends Linden Furnell and Kristy Griffin, both musical theatre graduates from Lasalle College Of The Arts, Chew also roped in emerging actors Mina Kaye and Benjamin Kheng for the intimate piece.

“It basically deals with different issues like sibling rivalry, and the fears of growing up or pursuing one’s dreams,” said Chew, who added that the creators of Edges had their fingers on the pulse of the youth. “It’s about the now generation, I think. When they were in university, they were going through stuff and they wrote a lot of songs.”

WILDE TIMES

W!ld Rice isn’t just restaging their inventive, all-male take on The Importance Of Being Earnest — they’re also doing something extra during the run. The same cast will also be doing readings of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials Of Oscar Wilde.

The play by Moises Kaufman looks at the downfall of the larger-than-life British writer, whose homosexuality created a kerfuffle during Queen Victoria’s era. Two readings will be done on April 21 and 28.

“My original intention of staging Earnest as an all-male cast four years ago was really to pay tribute to Oscar Wilde. I wanted people to leave the theatre just hearing his voice and hearing the language,” said director Glen Goei.

But two recent constitutional challenges to the controversial Section 377A of the Penal Code — which criminalises “gross indecency” between two men — prompted them to do a couple of readings of the 1997 play as an “extension” of his tribute to the man.

The two productions are “different animals”, said Goei. “(Gross Indecency) is very dark as opposed to Earnest, which is very light. (Wilde’s) trials are so famous because in a way he was the first homosexual to come out publicly. When the trials were starting and afterwards, he had a very bad name and became infamous. But he had the courage to stand up for what he believed in.”

FAMILY PAINS

A few years ago, Pangdemonium Productions’ Tracie Pang came across the script of Rabbit Hole and was immediately drawn to it. Staging the 2007 Pultizer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, however, was another matter altogether.

“It’s not bright and happy and it doesn’t have nice songs — it certainly wasn’t the piece that we wanted to launch the company with,” she said.

Even now, it’s proving to be a tough one. Directed by Pang and starring her husband Adrian, Janice Koh, Lok Meng Chue, Seong Hui Xuan and Eden Ang, Rabbit Hole follows the story of a family coming to grips with the death of a child. A movie adaptation starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart came out in 2010.

“It’s one of the hardest pieces that we’ve attempted to put together because it’s so close to home. The fact that you’re dealing with the loss of a child is a very heavy weight to carry in the rehearsal room,” she added.

More so because it resonated with some pretty recent tragedies, including the two siblings who were killed in an accident in Tampines in January, added Pang. As part of their research, they also met with couples who experienced similar tragedies. That said, humour does surface in Rabbit Hole.

“It’s not a complete downer and it’s very funny in point,” said Pang. “It’s very delicately written. When we spoke to some of the families and they read the script themselves, they said, you know what, this is so true. It’s not maudlin, it’s not people pouring their hearts out or a chance for actors to just have psychotherapy onstage.”

ABCD is from April 3 to 6, 8pm, 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Tickets at S$35 from tworks [at] singnet.com.sg or 6737 7213.

Edges The Musical is from April 3 to 19, 8pm, Drama Centre Blackbox. With a 5pm Saturday matinee. Tickets at S$38 from Ticketmash.sg.

The Importance Of Being Earnest is from April 10 to May 4, 8pm, Drama Centre Theatre. With 3pm weekend matinees. Tickets from S$40 to S$70 at Sistic.

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials Of Oscar Wilde is on April 21 and 28, 7.30pm, Drama Centre Theatre. Tickets at S$30 from Sistic.

Rabbit Hole is from April 21 to May 12, 8pm, DBS Arts Centre — Home Of SRT. With 3pm weekend matinees. Tickets from S$20 to S$50 from Sistic.